Ramadan 2025: Holy month set to begin on March 1, Abu Dhabi astronomy centre predicts
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gulf Today
2 days ago
- Gulf Today
Sheikh Sultan directs to build 1,365 housing units in Sharjah's Mehathab area
His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, has ordered the construction of three residential complexes in the Mehathab Suburb. These will comprise a total of 1,365 homes; 362 in Residential Qutainah (1), 428 in Residential Qutainah (3) and 575 in Al Shanoof Residential Complex. This announcement was made by Engineer Salem Al Abdouli, Director of the Sharjah Housing Department, through the 'Direct Line' programme, which is broadcast in Sharjah. He said that the houses feature a blend of local, Islamic and modern architectural styles, and are equipped with a fire detection system to enhance quality of life. Each 3,300-square-foot residence has a guest room, a sitting room, a kitchen, and four bedrooms on the ground floor. The housing units will be delivered with full infrastructure services. Concurrently, the department has initiated the delivery of residential units within Al Qutainah Residential Complex 1, representing the inaugural project to be realised in the Mehathab Suburb. The infrastructure for the three complexes is currently being completed. On the other hand, Dr Sheikh Sultan responded to a caller named Abeer on the programme and instructed the Sharjah Police to address the issue of her brother Obeid, who is mentally ill and causing problems at home. Media personality Mohammed Al Suwaidi then informed the caller that there is a designated facility for cases like her brother's, which will be ready within a month.
Sharjah 24
2 days ago
- Sharjah 24
Housing Department promotes family stability in 'Al Qutaina 1'
Architectural diversity Speaking exclusively to Sharjah 24, Hamad Saleh Al Hammadi confirmed that "Al Qutaina 1" project offers architectural diversity, allowing beneficiaries to choose one of three design facades: local, modern, or Islamic. This is before they enter an electronic lottery to determine the location of their home within the project. The department has reinforced this approach with streamlined procedures, communicating directly with beneficiaries and inviting them to its headquarters to receive keys and complete transactions quickly and efficiently, embodying its commitment to facilitating government services. Safe and comfortable housing The Head of the Media Department pointed to the technical support provided by the department to beneficiaries. The Planning and Survey Department team provided detailed maps of each home, while a field follow-up team was formed to visit families after receipt and inspect the homes to ensure their readiness for safe and comfortable housing. The project is the first of several phases embodying institutional integration that seeks to improve the quality of residential life through designs that meet families' needs while preserving their privacy. Al Hammadi added that the delivery of the first phase reflects the project's rapid completion and the department's commitment to the planned timeline. He noted that subsequent phases will witness further improvements and design options, meeting citizens' aspirations and enhancing the level of housing services in the emirate. Integrated quality of life Al Hammadi concluded his statement by emphasising that the Sharjah Housing Department will continue to work on delivering the next phases according to the highest construction and technical standards, ensuring the sustainability of housing and promoting family stability. This translates the vision of His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah to build a community that enjoys an integrated quality of life.
Gulf Today
4 days ago
- Gulf Today
Chaos, gangs, gunfire: Gaza aid fails to reach most needy
The trickle of food aid Israel allows to enter Gaza after nearly 22 months of war is seized by Palestinians risking their lives under fire, looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need, UN agencies, aid groups and analysts say. After images of malnourished children stoked an international outcry, aid has started to be delivered to the territory once more but on a scale deemed woefully insufficient by international organisations. Every day, AFP correspondents on the ground see desperate crowds rushing towards food convoys or the sites of aid drops by Arab and European air forces. On Thursday, in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, emaciated Palestinians rushed to pallets parachuted from a plane, jostling and tearing packages from each other in a cloud of dust. "Hunger has driven people to turn on each other. People are fighting each other with knives," Amir Zaqot, who came seeking aid, told the media. Palestinians climbo onto a truck as they seek for aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on Friday. Reuters To avoid disturbances, World Food Programme (WFP) drivers have been instructed to stop before their intended destination and let people help themselves. But to no avail. "A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured retrieving the bag," sighed a man, carrying a bag of flour on his head, in the Zikim area, in the northern Gaza Strip. 'Truly tragic' Mohammad Abu Taha went at dawn to a distribution site near Rafah in the south to join the queue and reserve his spot. He said there were already "thousands waiting, all hungry, for a bag of flour or a little rice and lentils." Palestinians transport gallons of clean water from a distribution point in Gaza City. AFP "Suddenly, we heard gunshots..... There was no way to escape. People started running, pushing and shoving each other, children, women, the elderly," said the 42-year-old. "The scene was truly tragic: blood everywhere, wounded, dead." Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for aid since May 27, the majority by the Israeli army, the United Nations said on Friday. The Israeli army denies any targeting, insisting it only fires "warning shots" when people approach too close to its positions. International organisations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza, including refusing to issue border crossing permits, slow customs clearance, limited access points, and imposing dangerous routes. On Tuesday, in Zikim, the Israeli army "changed loading plans for WFP, mixing cargo unexpectedly. The convoy was forced to leave early, without proper security," said a senior UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the south of Gaza, at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, "there are two possible routes to reach our warehouses (in central Gaza)," said an NGO official, who also preferred to remain anonymous. "One is fairly safe, the other is regularly the scene of fighting and looting, and that's the one we're forced to take." 'Darwinian experiment' Some of the aid is looted by gangs -- who often directly attack warehouses -- and diverted to traders who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts. "It becomes this sort of Darwinian social experiment of the survival of the fittest," said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Palestinians climb onto trucks as they seek for aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. Reuters "People who are the most starved in the world and do not have the energy must run and chase after a truck and wait for hours and hours in the sun and try to muscle people and compete for a bag of flour," he said. Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, added: "We're in an ultra-capitalist system, where traders and corrupt gangs send kids to risk life and limb at distribution points or during looting. It's become a new profession." This food is then resold to "those who can still afford it" in the markets of Gaza City, where the price of a 25-kilogramme bag of flour can exceed $400, he added. 'Never found proof' Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the UN, which has been delivering the bulk of aid since the start of the war triggered by the Palestinian group Hamas's October 2023 attack. A Palestinian man carries a bag of humanitarian aid he received at the Rafah corridor in the southern Gaza Strip. Agence France-Presse The Israeli authorities have used this accusation to justify the total blockade they imposed on Gaza between March and May, and the subsequent establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organisation supported by Israel and the United States which has become the main aid distributor, sidelining UN agencies. However, for more than two million inhabitants of Gaza the GHF has just four distribution points, which the UN describes as a "death trap". "Hamas... has been stealing aid from the Gaza population many times by shooting Palestinians," said the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. But according to senior Israeli military officials quoted by the New York Times on July 26, Israel "never found proof" that the group had "systematically stolen aid" from the UN. A Palestinian boy who was injured while seeking humanitarian aid at the Rafah corridor in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP Weakened by the war with Israel which has seen most of its senior leadership killed, Hamas today is made up of "basically decentralised autonomous cells" said Shehada. He said while Hamas fighers still hunker down in each Gaza neighbourhood in tunnels or destroyed buildings, they are not visible on the ground "because Israel has been systematically going after them". Aid workers told AFP that during the ceasefire that preceded the March blockade, the Gaza police -- which includes many Hamas members -- helped secure humanitarian convoys, but that the current power vacuum was fostering insecurity and looting. "UN agencies and humanitarian organisations have repeatedly called on Israeli authorities to facilitate and protect aid convoys and storage sites in our warehouses across the Gaza Strip," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead at Oxfam. "These calls have largely been ignored," she added. 'All kinds of criminal activities' The Israeli army is also accused of having equipped Palestinian criminal networks in its fight against Hamas and of allowing them to plunder aid. "The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza," Jonathan Whittall, Palestinian territories chief of the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), told reporters in May. A Palestinian man who was injured while seeking humanitarian aid at the Rafah corridor, is carried into a field hospital in the Mawasi area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP According to Israeli and Palestinian media reports, an armed group called the Popular Forces, made up of members of a Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab, is operating in the southern region under Israeli control. The ECFR describes Abu Shabab as leading a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks". The Israeli authorities themselves acknowledged in June that they had armed Palestinian gangs opposed to Hamas, without directly naming the one led by Abu Shabab. Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, said many of the gang's members were implicated in "all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that". "None of this can happen in Gaza without the approval, at least tacit, of the Israeli army," said a humanitarian worker in Gaza, asking not to be named. Agence France-Presse
